Keep your macrophages fit for healthy aging.

As age is the greatest risk factor for the development of most prevalent chronic diseases, there is an enormous interest in understanding the process of aging, with the hope of delaying or preventing age-related comorbidities. Along these lines, a recent study by Minhas et al. (2021) describes how aged macrophages downregulate glycolysis and mitochondrial oxidative phosphorylation (OXPHOS), inducing an energy-deficient state that compromises macrophage function and supports maladaptive inflammation that together cause brain dysfunction.